E.J. Dionne on Democratic malaise:
. . . the GOP seems to be doing all it can to make itself unelectable, veering far to the right and embracing a tea-party movement that, at its extremes, preaches the need for revolution. That sounds more like the old New Left than a reinvigorated conservatism. Oh yes, and can you think of one thing Republicans stand for right now other than cutting spending? Never mind that they are conspicuously vague about what they'd cut.
Yet it is Democrats who are petrified, uncertain and hesitant — and this was true before the oil spill made matters worse. Obama's bold rhetoric about "the need to end America's century-long addiction to fossil fuels" was not matched by specifics because he knows that nearly a dozen Senate Democrats are skittish about acting. Why does it so often seem that Republicans are full of passionate intensity while Democrats lack all conviction? . . .
Professor Obama and his allies ought to be ashamed of this. The cure for malaise, defined as "a sensation of exhaustion or inadequate energy to accomplish usual activities," is to have a self-confident sense of purpose, and to act boldly in its pursuit.
Right. As if Dems had any sense of purpose or any hope of finding it. And don't let's start about boldness. Then there's Digby's comment on Dem resistance to a Dem proposal, the Durbin-Welch swipe fee amendment that would reduce fees merchants pay on credit cards:
Come on. This is the kind of thing Democrats should be fighting tooth and nail for. The wingnuts have owned the small business constituency for years because these guys face a lot of incomprehensible local regulation and the Republicans act like they feel their pain. Here the Democrats have a chance to be their champions and help them out at a time when they are all struggling and instead they are doing the bidding of a bunch of Big Money Boyz who are far happier when Republicans are in office (although they're willing to keep the Dems in campaign crack.) What the hell …
Dems pols, once elected, fight for nothing except their own careers. They no longer stand for anything, certainly not for the interests of ordinary Americans or any vision of the common good. Why? Because they no longer have any vital connection to their traditional bases. The result is a reactive, purposeless group that, even with majorities, loses on issues nine times out of ten to a party–as crazy, delusional, and fact-challenged as it is–that is nevertheless cohesive and disciplined in defining and achieving its goals.
The Dems are purposeless because they have no solid constituency anymore. People who elect Dems are people who don't like Republicans. It's not that they strongly identify as Democrats–they are simply 'not-Republicans'. That's how I see myself. The Dems do not represent my interests, and the only interests they appear consistently to represent are corporate players who are consistently making a mess of things. The Dems lost the traditional loyalty of urban ethnic Dems and rank-and-file blue collars in the eighties and nineties. Clinton did a pretty good job of alienating the progressive base in the nineties, and the Emmanuel/Obama team has done everything it can to alienate progressives and unions in the last eighteen months. The result is a party without a core, without a strong, committed base.
So let me ask the question: Who really feels that this is the party that will work for what matters to them, much less go to the mat for them? I think the only ones who could possibly answer in the affirmative are the "Big Money Boyz", and even they, as Digby points out, would prefer to work with the GOP. The reactiveness, shortsightedness, and the stupidity of the Dems is plain for everyone to see. The Dems' strategy for their future is to assume that they can survive from election cycle to election cycle with the support of the not-Republicans. But it's clear to me, whatever might be the case for the next few cycles, the American people have a future, but the Dems will have no significant role in leading them into it.
Let's face facts. The Dems have become the directionless, purposeless, don't stand-for-anything Whigs of the 1850s–completely clueless and completely useless in a time of national crisis. The Dems have lost their way, and something different must emerge constituted to more effectively rise to the challenge, as the Republicans did back then in forming a coalition of free soilers, anti-slavery Democrats, and abolitionist Whigs. The party seemingly came out of nowhere to assume the future-oriented mantle of that essential constituency of Americans committed to republican virtue and the common good. The Republicans, of course, had lost their way by WWI, and the Democrats gradually assumed the progressive mantle. We need now another such realignment, and we need leaders to emerge who can make it happen.
The Dems are past saving, but I don't think a Naderite third party offers a solution either. I think that a new political coalition has to emerge that comprises two factions that just don't feel very comfortable with one another right now: the first–blue-collar and Main-Street, traditional-values populists; the second–urban, bi-coastal, secular-values progressives. This, essentially, was the coalition that brought us the New Deal, but which has been split since the seventies on cultural values issues. Each group sees the other as belonging to a different tribe, but both share the same interest in stopping the Big Money Boyz from wrecking the country. They both have an interest in arresting the stratification that has come with the aggregation of power and wealth in their hands since the Reagan program was initiated in the 80s.
The reason so many Americans feel frustrated and powerless is because they are. They make a ritual gesture when they vote, but it doesn't mean anything when it comes to putting people in office to effect real solutions. The influence voters have over their representatives once they get into office is dwarfed by the influence exerted by the "Big Money Boyz". It's not that hard to understand. This is the way it has always worked in history. Co-optation through financial patronage and the consequent dependency of the patronized is how money and power gets its way. America was supposed to be different–in the beginning it was a very self-conscious rejection of the monorachical patronage/dependency system that dominated in England and in the colonies in the 18th century. The nation since then faced its first major patronage/dependency crisis in the late 19th century, and resolved it fairly effectively through the efforts of of turn-of-the century Progressives culminating in the New Deal compromise. We're now in the middle of the nation's second major patronage/dependency crisis, but it's unclear if the country has the wit and resolve to confront it.
This new coalition cannot form unless these different tribes decide to call a truce when it comes to the issues that divide them. They will not be able to effectively unite to fight for their common interests unless both sides agree to shelve for the time being their respective crusades concerning abortion, gay marriage, gun control, and a few other issues. I'm not saying that these issues don't matter; I'm saying that they as cultural values issues, are extraneous to the deeper power and money crisis that needs all our attention.
The Apaches and Comanches might have just grievances against one another, but unless they unite and confront the enemy that threatens them both, those grievances become academic. All that matters for this particular coalition are economic and political power issues that concern everyone who is not in the highest ten-percent of income and who cares about preserving something of the American republican experiment.
Concentrated wealth and power in the hands of fewer and fewer people in this country is destroying us, and we're doing nothing about it. And nothing is likely to happen because right now most Americans don't get it. They don't feel it; it's too abstract. The country needs to feel the pain more intensely than it does now. That's how it works with an electorate so lacking in vigilance, so intellectually confused, and, except for the crazies in the Tea Party, so complacent as ours has become. We need a sane, aroused citizenry with a clear analysis and clear goals, and we need the leadership that can rise to the challenge of galvanizing broad popular support. But it's not going to happen until we have some collective moment of clarity. And I hope I'm wrong, but collective pain seems to be the only thing that bring
s the kind of clarity we need.
For awhile, I thought Obama might have been the guy to galvanize this
kind of movement, but it's clear now that whatever his campaign rhetoric to that effect, he either never meant what he said or is powerless to do anything. Executive power only executes the will of the Big Money Boyz, it would appear, no matter which party is in the White House. So it's likely that the country in the next two or three election cycles, out of disgust with the fecklessness and corporate whoring of the Dems, and for want of an alternative will vote for the other guys. That will, of course, make things much worse, but it's probably the only thing that will bring on the pain that will eventually force the aforementioned realignment of progressives and populists.
We're five to ten years away from anything productive along these lines happening. There has to be some kind of game changer, something that forces us to see clearly what we seem incapable of seeing now, and unfortunately that clarity only comes with increased pain. And that pain is inevitable so long as we stay on the present course.
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